Early Risers.

[edcayton]

Morning all….Still several pages to catch up.  Where does it all come from?….:-)

 

Best wishes to all that are below par right now.

 

Surfing through YouTube this morning on golf stuff and it must have picked up my love of trains and planes...

 

Here's some big boys toys….

 

Enjoy it all, but 8.10 onwards looks fun..

 

 

Very nice Gordon, especially the Vulcan. Thanks for posting. 

 

I'm really pleased that aero models have moved on from having propellors on models of jets. 

 

Ed

[newbryford]

Morning all. Dry and hazy at the centre of The Kingdom

 

POETS day - sort of - beckons at 4pm with a mixed doubles league game. It's a family affair with me and SiL against BiL and his missus. There will be friendly banter but we won't be giving anything up in playing!

 

Another driving test at 1.40pm.

 

Have a good Friday.

 

Cheers,

Mick

[Oldddudders]

Morning all

 

Dull start here, and rain expected over the next few days. At least it's decently mild.

 

Poor Sherry has been suffering with her grumpy knees for the last week or so, and getting home to a flat where the gas boiler won't light may not be helping. On ringing her usual plumber he advised he was at the airport en route his hols! Other resources are being sought. Her sister's funeral is on the 24th.

 

I was useless at chemistry and physics. Chemistry got off to a bad start as we seemed to have some sort of homework to learn symbols and values. We were supposed to learn valency, I think, but I learnt atomicity, which sounded more interesting. Cue a poor result in test and I was turned off chemistry for life. The chemistry teacher was a Scot, and invented and sold some sort of board game with some success. We didn't buy it. At least he taught me the importance of a backswing in tennis, but I haven't played that since skool, either.

 

Not much of a flyer, but I do get the impression overhead lockers were invented because the space was available. As we started to disembark after one flight, a chap opened his locker and his laptop fell on my head. He seemed to think I should sue Isaac Newton.....

 

Reclaiming the railway barn takes on a new urgency as I have grudgingly accepted that I will demonstrate trains running to Alison's kids tomorrow afternoon. As they are totally committed to video games - thanks to their father who is happy for them to play games rated 18+, despite the youngest being 6 - the attention span may not be overlong.

 

Hope your week finishing on a high note.

[The Lurker]

Morning all, beautiful blue skies over Borough Market Junction again - perfect for Jamie, il Dottore and Unravelled - who I believe is behind the flickr streams on London Bridge and Bermondsey Diveunder works.

 

I see that the Hairy Bikers pie book has already been recommended - which saves me suggesting it. Those who know better suggest that the oven cooking times are not to be relied upon in some of their recipes, although the ones I've used (largely curries!) seem to work to my satisfaction.

 

My chemistry tales are poor in comparison to some. Mainly melting bic biros and lighting the gas taps without bunsens and so on. Our biology, the much loved (and long since late) Honey Monster was an amazing character who managed to bring humour into his punishment of wayward students in a way that would not be tolerated now. A common one was to require a boy to stand up off the lab stool at which point Honey Monster would grab his hair and proclaim "rotate". The wayward pupil would rotate and rotate, ever tightening his hair in Honey Monster's grasp, much to the amusement of the rest of us. To reinforce boys paying attention he would randomly swing a 10ft long dried sunflower stalk from the front of the class. Those paying attention would duck......

 

Younger Lurker seemed more positive about school yesterday and is of course pleased that today is Friday!

 

I remember Jock a few years ago talking about the first day at school at another of his great grandchildren (I think) and sadly saying that he doubted he'd see Freddie's first day. I guess the day was a little bittersweet, given Freddie's father's predicament, but it is testimony to Jock's staying power and I hoe that it has passed down in full to his grandson.

 

Enjoy your day, and the beautiful downgrade to the weekend

[railsquid]

 

"Hairy Bikers Perfect Pies"

 

This strikes me as the kind of phrase you wouldn't want to put into a general-purpose search engine without some forethought.

 

Kind of POETS today, though on call again TS, for the 6th consecutive week. The money's nice but hopefully this will be the last time for a week or two. Some amusing incidents from the world of work this week, including a customer's server which ran out of disk space; we warned them, and they said "OK, if it runs out of space we'll have to leave it until we can get more disks"; no sooner had I informed them of its fate and the fact that there's carp all we can do, they raised a ticket of the sort "OMG carp carp carp our server's down!!11!! plz help ASAP!!!!".

 

Two typhoons conspired to dump a conveyor belt of rain clouds bringing epic amounts of precipitation to eastern Japan this week; I've seen it rain harder but never this much for this long. We missed the worst of it (fortuitously our house is pretty much on the exact watershed of Tokyo's two major river systems), but much bursting of river banks further north causing a lot of destruction and some fatalities.

 

Sun is out now for the first time in a week, lots of children out and about catching up on lost play time.

 

BabySquid is in fine fettle and is starting to burble away quite actively, I swear he's saying "hello" sometimes.

 

On which note I bid you TTFN.

[PhilJ W]

Morning all from Estuary-Land. It looks as if Jock has missed my advice on travelling to Basildon Hospital so I'll PM him to make sure, the bottom end of the A130 can be horrendous during the evening rush on Fridays in particular. Of to watch 'Blitz Cities' now, fascinating. Have a good POETS day all.

[Simon G]

Morning all

 

I was politely offered severance from school chemistry before taking any exams.  My lab practicals were among the best in class but this undiagnosed Asperger's brain couldn't begin to understand the maths that went with it.  Our Head of Chemistry (researching in his spare time into the effects of UV light on amino-acids) was also given severance and left abruptly following a practical to determine the boiling point of chloroform.

 

In fairness he did warn us not to test the vapour and to wear the provided masks but do you think a class of teenage boys was going to take any notice knowing what said substance was typically used for???

 

Three out of about twenty remained conscious.  Myself included.  Exit one Head of Chemistry .........

I had to give that a Funny rating, even though it wasn't too funny for some of those concerned!

 

Another chemistry tale was from Uni, when I was working in a fume hood one day, and the guy in the adjacent fume hood dropped a large bottle of benzene all over the floor. After some ritual insults about his clumsiness, I noticed the Chemistry Professor approaching, with pipe in mouth as usual. Now as benzene is highly flammable (and also now known to be carcinogenic), I got rather worried at this point, so set off up the corridor towards the Professor, and decided to quickly remove him from the area. As a rugby player, I was fit and strong back then, and just put him over my shoulder and deposited him a safe distance away. Even when he was told why I had done it, he still wasn't too impressed! Now can you just imagine someone smoking a pipe while touring chemistry labs these days?

[roundhouse]

This strikes me as the kind of phrase you wouldn't want to put into a general-purpose search engine without some forethought.

 

Kind of POETS today, though on call again TS, for the 6th consecutive week. The money's nice but hopefully this will be the last time for a week or two. Some amusing incidents from the world of work this week, including a customer's server which ran out of disk space; we warned them, and they said "OK, if it runs out of space we'll have to leave it until we can get more disks"; no sooner had I informed them of its fate and the fact that there's carp all we can do, they raised a ticket of the sort "OMG carp carp carp our server's down!!11!! plz help ASAP!!!!".

 

Two typhoons conspired to dump a conveyor belt of rain clouds bringing epic amounts of precipitation to eastern Japan this week; I've seen it rain harder but never this much for this long. We missed the worst of it (fortuitously our house is pretty much on the exact watershed of Tokyo's two major river systems), but much bursting of river banks further north causing a lot of destruction and some fatalities.

 

Sun is out now for the first time in a week, lots of children out and about catching up on lost play time.

 

BabySquid is in fine fettle and is starting to burble away quite actively, I swear he's saying "hello" sometimes.

 

On which note I bid you TTFN.

Its been on the news over here about the floods in japan.

 

Glad you are OK.

 

Ian

[Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71]

Mornin' all,

 

Perfect seasonal morn for the short anticlockwise....sunny and warm with scents of Autumn throughout. Seasonal pallette was the picture challenge for today....

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Whilst,I felt that I could identify with the fish on the new local pub sign

 

Off to school today to waterproof the new shed doors once the dew has risen. Felting one of the other shed rooves will complete my labours for them today.

 

Feathered ones provided for

 

Best wishes to all in any difficulty or phase of ailment

 

Enjoy what you do

 

Dave 

Edited September 11, 2015 by Torr Giffard LSWR 1951-71

[Killybegs]

Our indian summer is over, wet and dreary this morning so I am giving myself a day off from outside duties. Steph is away up in Buncrana in the motor home for a three day sew in, so I can do want I want!

 

Earlier this week the beach was littered with cockle shells and yesterday it was hundreds of stranded star fish. This morning the shells are still there but the star fish have gone. Washed back to sea or breakfast/lunch/supper for the seagulls and hooded crows?

 

I enjoyed chemistry but was guilty of some rather dangerous pranks. A relatively harmless one was detaching the rubber tubing from a bunsen burner, attaching it to a gas tap and blowing down it until other pupils bunsen burners went out. It may have been incidents like this that tead to me leaving school earlier than my parents anticipated.

 

Today's visitor is the cruise ship Prinsedam. It left Dublin on Tuesday, spent the day in Greenock on Wednesday and arrived here early this morning. Sadly, the passengers have rather a grey day for their coach trips around Donegal.

 

Enjoy POETS day.

 

[New Haven Neil]

Morning, and with all the usual good wishes and support to those in need.  Seems a few folk are going through it at the moment, or is that just an indication of our average age?

 

A day of shopping and housework beckons, interspersed with trying to complete the build of the new laptop.  This probably will be the harbinger of much bad language and frustration.

 

A touch windy out, but dry.  One of the memories I have of Japan is the torrential rain at times, so I can sympathise with the Squid family.  I loved Kobe, but that was pre-quake of course, there is probably not a lot left of the parts I knew.  The Daimaru 'department store' (it was Huuuuge!) in Motomachi blew my mind as an 18 year old!  You could buy anything from an N gauge train to a Rolls-Royce in there.

[bbishop]

Ok, guys.  The last couple of posts mention chemicals that are highly carcinogenic being used in open labs.  Benzene and chloroform.  I know our chemistry is pretty well limited to the effect of 2-butanone on styrene but please be careful out there.  And make sure the younger generation is too.

 

Bill

[bbishop]

We didn't cause any bangs in our science lessons at school but I do remember one incident where the teacher managed to spill mercury on his desk. It settled in globules so all he did was push the globules back into a test tube with his fingers.   We all seemed to survive the experience anyway. Goodnight all.

Yet another carcinogen.  At least I used a pipette.

 

Bill

[southern42]

Morning all from red dragon land.

Chilly start to the day and the sun doing its best to penetrate thin cloud.

 

Great day at Kew Gardens yesterday.  Seems it was busier than even the gate staff expected.  Lots of school parties as well as a host of good weather visitors so we kept to the quieter routes for the most part and left the Waterlily House till late afternoon after the school parties had left.  I'll sort out a few pics later.

 

Best wishes to all of you undergoing treatment today or needing a bit of TLC.

Take care the rest of you and hope you enjoy your day.

[trisonic]

Dry and Sunny at 84f expected today - which is better than the 96f and humid earlier this week. Cooler by Monday at a dry 72f.

 

Have a good day everyone.

 

Best, Pete.

[Robert]

 Now can you just imagine someone smoking a pipe while touring chemistry labs these days?

 

No!

 

I went to Prep School from age 4 to 11, and smoking in class by the teachers was (amazingly) still allowed - although I can only remember three teachers that actually did it.  The headmaster was a pipe smoker and would frequently light up in class disappearing in a cloud of aromatic smoke.

 

He smoked Clan - and to this day the smell of Clan tobacco takes me straight back to school!

[The Stationmaster]

Morning all,

 

Bright sunny day but rain is zooming up over the horizon for the weekend - so it's a question of working out which will be the best day to head for Swindon.

 

Meanwhile as it's Friday herself will be heading into Waitrose after various other tasks in town and I will be duly summoned to provide transport home once she's finished the shopping but I also need togo to Tesco so major excitement of two supermarkets in one day.

 

Have a good day one & all.

[New Haven Neil]

Mid-shopping break.

 

Chemistry was a disaster for me - I had a long break from school after an accident, and when I went back at the beginning of the 3rd year, whatever that is in new money, we had a new Chemistry Master who was a Doctor of Chemistry of some kind, no less - young bloke too.  He just couldn't reach down to our level, everyone struggled, but I was left way behind and just could not work it out all and Dr T was no help at all.  Thus I flunked it at O level, and it meant I struggled at higher levels as I went on in my career.  It always annoyed me, as I am/was scientific in my interests, and most of O level Physics I had already taught myself through my interests at that time.  I didn't get the hang of combustion until doing thermodynamics. Alkanes, alkenes and aalkinds of things.....

[Tony_S]

so it's a question of working out which will be the best day to head for Swindon.

 

Have a good day one & all.

I must pay more attention, I read that as "to head for Sweden".

[The Lurker]

at the beginning of the 3rd year, whatever that is in new money,

I'm picking up the new system as Elder Lurker goes through the school system.

 

Any year he's been through I think of in the new style, any year he's not been in is in old money for me and I have to make the effort to translate. He's just started Year 9 (3rd year secondary school). It probably doesn't help that he did a reception year starting at about 4 1/2 whereas I am pretty certain I didn't start until I was 5. Mind you, the year I spent in Singapore started with me in a class called Transition Red, which was after Upper Infants and before year 1 of the Juniors. On the other hand, Mrs Lurker grew up in areas where they had middle schools so has no problem with the current school numbering....

[Tony_S]

I'm picking up the new system as Elder Lurker goes through the school system.

 

... On the other hand, Mrs Lurker grew up in areas where they had middle schools so has no problem with the current school numbering....

Aditi got promoted by a year when her parents finally settled in Nottingham after a year moving round Derbyshire attending 3 secondary schools in one year. She had taken the 11+ in Yorkshire but on ability was placed in the second year (now year 8 ). This didn't matter for most subjects but it did for maths as she effectively missed a year of some stuff that was crucial for later study. Edited September 11, 2015 by Tony_S

[The Stationmaster]

I must pay more attention, I read that as "to head for Sweden".

There's difference?  (well I suppose that actually there is - there are more trees in Sweden and you can buy alcohol in Swindon)

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

 All the direly dangerous laboratory practise of our yesterdays. When I had my first serious career job, there was no restriction on eating and drinking in the laboratories, despite the continuous prescense of acute toxins in the principal lines of work undertaken. Smoking wasn't generally allowed, but that was because the ash could readily contaminate some of the microanalyses.

 

When was smoking banned in UK state schools? The staff rooms of the primary and secondary establishments I attended were nicotine dens, and some staff would smoke elsewhere around the premises, though I feel this was not encouraged. (One notorious fellow burned a hole through his jacket pocket with a lit pipe, having commanded his class to absolute silence, great amusement all around.) In the year before we turned 16 we were told that there was no smoking despite becoming of legal age, and we must leave school for college if we wanted to kill ourselves that way while also taking O levels.

...Reclaiming the railway barn takes on a new urgency as I have grudgingly accepted that I will demonstrate trains running to Alison's kids tomorrow afternoon. As they are totally committed to video games - thanks to their father who is happy for them to play games rated 18+, despite the youngest being 6 - the attention span may not be overlong...

 May you be pleasantly surprised. I have been over the past couple of years, by one girl now 10, who was seemingly obsessed by online fashion design games. Mum brings her over about once a month to have a go with the trains. It's the engineering side of it that engages her most, the how and why of what makes it work; we are laying track next session. Think she has the makings of an engineer, if she wants that.

[roundhouse]

There's difference?  (well I suppose that actually there is - there are more trees in Sweden and you can buy alcohol in Swindon)

Dont you mean that you can afford to buy alcohol in Swindon!

Edited September 11, 2015 by roundhouse

[BoD]

I must pay more attention, I read that as "to head for Sweden".

I would avoid going via Denmark

Edited September 11, 2015 by BoD